What is the 4 Year Review process for CAP courses?

The CAP 4 Year Review is an opportunity for faculty members and departments to reflect on a CAP course and consider student learning in that course. Faculty members are asked to re-examine the course as it was initially conceived and proposed to determine if the course is still being delivered that way and whether or not students are learning what faculty members strive for them to learn in the course. Simply put, the 4 Year Review process asks:

Is the course being delivered as proposed for CAP?

Are students learning?

How is that learning discerned?

By providing an opportunity to reflect, this process enables faculty, departments, and the broader campus community to focus on learning and communicate with others about the learning that is occurring as part of the Common Academic Program.

What is the point of the CAP 4 Year Review?

The CAP 4 Year Review process is intended for faculty to reflect and determine if the course that is being taught is aligned with initial learning aims of the course, demonstrate that learning is happening, and consider any changes for the future.

What the CAP 4 Year Review is not:

Words such as "review" can provoke fear and reluctance, so it is important to point out what the CAP 4 Year Review is not. This process is ﻿not﻿ about:

﻿Collecting evidence that will be conveyed by the CAP Office to unit- or institution-level tenure and promotion committees;

Telling faculty members how to teach or what to teach;

Using data to thwart course offerings.

Recommended elements of a course assessment plan:

The CAP Committee (CAPC) developed recommendations in May 2017 that a course assessment plan should identify the following elements:

System for administering assessment (e.g., rubric)

Who will conduct the assessment (e.g., instructor of record, outside instructors, etc.)?

Who will be assessed (e.g., every student or random sample)?

Frequency of assessment (if appropriate depending on how often the course is offered)

Metric for achievement

Method for interpreting and using results from assessment

Completing the 4 Year Review Report

Departments and programs are asked to provide information about each course undergoing the CAP 4 Year Review process by completing a form (see below for download information) that includes the following categories. For each question in Sections 2, 3, and 4, please provide a response of no more than 250 words per question. Additional information, documentation, etc. is encouraged, but please include answers to each of these questions on the form and refer only to other documents for supplemental information.

Download the 4 Year Review Report form (Word) >>HERE.Download the 4 Year Review Report form (pdf - for Adobe Acrobat Pro users) >>HERE.

Section 1: Course Information

1-A. Course Number and Title 1-B. Department 1-C. Faculty member(s) who teach the course 1-D. When has the course been taught in the last four years since CAP approved (year/semester)? 1-E. CAP Component(s) the course fulfills 1-F. UD Habits of Inquiry and Reflection (HIR) Institutional Learning Goal(s) (ILGs) the course fulfills

Section 2: Learning Outcomes

2-A. What are the course learning objectives (CLOs) from when the course received CAP designation? (Refer to the Course Inventory Management system.) 2-B. How do those CLOs connect to the UD Institutional Learning Goals (ILGs) and CAP Component(s)? Or, put differently, which ILGs and CAP Components connect to which CLOs? (Mapping CLOs to ILGs is sufficient.) 2-C. What do you do to determine if each CLO is being achieved? How do you determine if each CLO is being achieved each semester? What student artifacts are used to make those determinations? Please be specific in your responses and you are encouraged to attached supplemental information, such as review plans, rubrics, assignment instructions, etc.

Section 3: Tracking Learning

3-A. How do you use the information gleaned from student artifacts to determine student learning? Please attach any relevant documents, such as rubrics. 3-B. What conclusions can you draw from your review of student learning regarding overall student learning in this course over the last four years?

Section 4: Future Course Offerings

4-A. What changes, if any, regarding CAP Components, ILGs, and/or CLOs and their relationship to ILGs do you plan on making in the future and why? 4-B. Looking ahead to future offerings of this course, what would you like to do with this course? What changes do you want to make and why? What do you need to make those aspirations a reality?

4 Year Review Timeline: 2017-18 Academic Year

The following timeline applies to departments and programs with courses that will go through the 4 Year Review process during the 2017-18 academic year. Departments and programs will be notified with significant lead time about the timeline applicable to courses that will go through the process in subsequent academic years.

Any final revisions or modifications should be submitted via CIM by September 1, 2018

Fall 2017 Workshop: Presentations and Resources

The CAP Office sponsored a workshop in September 2017 for departments with courses up for 4 Year Review in the 2017-18 cycle. The following materials were covered during the workshop (select the document title to download or video title to play). The videos include several examples of experience with assessment.